Burgers and Scones ! Whitman's & Cha-An

To celebrate Jamie's new job, we dined in East Village to feed her neverending craving for french fries, and what goes better with french fries than delectable burgers?

Whitman's signature burger is the Juicy Luicy, a Minneapolis creation, meaning a burger stuffed with cheese. Here, you can choose between a pimento cheese-stuffed burger or the B'Luicy featuring blue cheese.  Many other non-stuffed options are also available if you don't trust yourself to not burn your mouth with hot oozing cheese hidden away in a meaty mound.

I ordered the Spicy Patty, a burger stuffed with habanero, jalapeno and serrano peppers and topped with red onions.

Fantastically spicy and juicy, the meaty blend perfectly sweetened with the red onion.  This burger is really awesome.

Peter ordered the Juicy Luicy.  It appears deceivingly small but is truly satisfying to the last bite.

Josh ordered the Upstate burger, a classic beef burger with pickles, special sauce and onions.  Before I was able to get halfway into my burger, Josh's plate was clean.  "I thoroughly enjoyed it," he formally declared.

Jamie celebrated with a grilled chicken sandwich that came with a glorious slice of thick bacon and choice of side.

Jamie selected the popular crack kale, but was disappointed to find the kale completely dripping with oil.  Crisp but overly greasy, it was hard to eat more than a few pieces.

The fries can be ordered with blue cheese.  If you do, it will look like this.  Like a blue cheese monster just took a dump on a bowl of fries.

If you're not into blue cheese, the naked, natural cut fries are wonderful on their own.

Whitman's fried pickles, resembling thin, ridged potato chips were greaseless, crisp and deemed a hit by Peter, the fried pickle fanatic.

Afterwards, we tried to quash the spice from the trio of peppers burning a deep hole in my stomach at Cha-An for fanciful tea and scones.

Peter ordered a tremendous looking green tea parfait layered with large mochi chunks and red beans.

The rest of us ordered scones, baked to order, which makes them especially delightful.

Encrusted with giant chunks of sugar, the scones came in Earl Grey and chocolate chip.  Both paired magically with the sweet cream and blueberry compote.  Perfect scones are crunchy on the outside, moist and delicate on the inside, light and buttery, and these are definitely some of my favorite scones in the city.

I forget how much I love the East Village sometimes, and nights like these really help me to remember !

Han's Nonsensical Rating: Whitman's might just be serving up one of my new favorite burgers in the city, cause I definitely like my burgers like I like my men, juicy and hot.  (Ha!)

Whitman's
406 E 9th St
New York, NY


Cha-An
230 E 9th St
New York, NY